These 1950s performances include scenes from Weber's Der Freischütz, Lortzing's Der Wildschütz and Undine, Flotow's Martha, and Zeller's Der Vogelhändler. Once praised by Arturo Toscanini as "the find of the century," American soprano Teresa Stich-Randall sings the lead role in Martha with the Vienna Opera, where she was a regular for many years.

"Der Freischütz arrestingly mixes the age-old hunting culture of Central Europe with a dose of the supernatural: its title, often translated as 'The Freeshooter,' refers to magic bullets obtained in a devilish pact."—International Herald Tribune

"Weber's nerve-tingling score … captured the German imagination, and has done so ever since. Its influence was incalculable. Weber flung wide the door to Wagnerian music drama, foreshadowing The Flying Dutchman, Lohengrin and the Ring Cycle itself; Berlioz, Liszt, Mahler and Debussy admired Freischütz's dramatic ingenuity, its uncanny power of suggestion, its harmonic inventiveness, and the sheer artistry by which, in Weber's hands, a simple moral fable acquires subtle psychological undercurrents that raise it far above the ordinary."—The Independent